KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN
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Kate didn’t want Mady’s “ugliness” to rub off on everybody else, but she sure wasn’t worried about her own ugliness ruining their good time. While feeding the fish, Kate says to Joel, “Um yeah, you’re dripping it on yourself! You’re gonna stink! That was wonderful, Joel! Now you’re gonna stink like a fish but we can’t change you!”
I’d like to ask poor little Joel if he had a good time being scolded and ridiculed by his mother. Any possible “ugliness” from Mady would have paled in comparison to that shown by Kate.
POST-SPLIT REPORTING
The following are excerpts from my daily reporting for US Weekly.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
August 2009
…Jon got a basketball from the garage and shot around for a few minutes with Cara. The other kids are playing. They’re thrilled that Jon is home because Kate rarely lets them outside and I never hear them yelling and playing while she’s here. They’re going crazy running around now and having fun.
Jon and Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
September 2009
5:30 pm – Kate was supposed to come home to relieve Jon but she was waiting for him to leave the house and Jon didn’t want to leave the house and let the kids alone without her being there, so we had a three hour stalemate. Kate went to the tanning salon and the UPS store the paps told me and then to the Giant where she bought groceries. She then sat in her Land Cruiser in the Giant parking lot for over an hour while Jon waited at the house for her to get home. He was getting pissed at her for acting like this.
Jon told me that it was exhausting taking care of eight kids alone in response to my question. I have a couple little ones and I can’t imagine what it must be like to have eight. He said he just did dinner, dessert, played, bathed them all while Mady and Cara packed their own lunches for school tomorrow. He told me that with the little girls, you have to shampoo, condition and brush their hair as well. He loves doing it all. He always smiles when talking about the kids.
7 pm – Kate finally came home and she was dressed to kill in a bright pink dress and heels. She looked stunning. When she first pulled in I could hear just a brief but heated exchange but that was because of the kids. All the kids were excited to see her. I could hear “Mommyyyyyyyyy” from the road and they were giving her big hugs etc. Mady and Cara and most of the little ones helped with the groceries and Kate’s bags. There was just one pap and me there at this point and she didn’t seem happy about it. She did her best to keep herself hidden behind the car and trees, parking right by the front door again.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
September 2009
…Another neighbor from Elizabethtown that I spoke to several weeks ago told me that Kate was always screaming at the kids, even when they were very small. She would run the house like a military base, expecting the kids to jump whenever she yelled for them. “I saw Kate spank the kids many times. She believed in old-school discipline. If she said something and they didn’t listen, they’d get spanked. It got to the point that the kids would cover up when she yelled at them because they didn’t know if they were going to get hit or not.”
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
September 2009
After leaving the Target shopping center, she drove in the opposite direction of home and I wasn’t sure where she was headed but she ended up at the kid’s orthodontist in Wyomissing. The TLC crew was there waiting for her outside in the back where she parked. She pulled into their very small lot and a pap pulled in right next to her and she yelled to TLC “They can’t park here! They can’t park here!!” and the TLC guys told him he had to leave. I had parked past there and ran back to see her get out of the car. Kate yelled at Mady, “Move! We’re late because of you!”
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
September 2009
I went to the filming location from yesterday to back report on what happened inside during the shoot.
I’ve been going in there for years getting my daughter’s dance supplies so I know the owner well enough to ask questions. She told me off the record that “Kate was very polite and courteous while the crew was filming, but as soon as they stopped, she lost her smile and became very bossy to the camera guys, telling them which angles to shoot her from and when to and not to shoot the kids. She yelled at the kids to behave several times when the cameras were off but laughed off their behavior when they were filming. She seemed to treat the kids like props rather than little people. She talks to them with disdain, like they’re a burden to her. The kids didn’t seem to mind though. They looked very happy and the nanny was there to take care of them. She would take them to the bathroom and be there to control them for Kate.”
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
October 2009
…Back at the house, the kids are very tense and easily upset. They’re fighting constantly and are acting out at school. Kate doesn’t spend any real, quality time with them so they’re on their own to figure things out for themselves. Mady and Cara are getting upset at little things and yelling back at the babysitters. They don’t have a mother in their lives to give them discipline right now while Kate is off giving interviews, etc. They talk back to the nannies too now and the nannies are yelling back at them.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
October 2009
…I waited at the bus stop this afternoon for Kate to show up but there was nobody there from the Gosselin camp. The bus pulled in on schedule but Kate wasn’t there yet. A few minutes later, Kate came speeding into the parking lot and pulled up to the bus. Mady and Cara were already out of the bus and Mady was standing there with her arms out at her side as if to say “where were you??” Kate stayed in the car and they started getting in but then she got out and helped them with their bags. A single paparazzo was following her and he told me that Kate was in the bank just before racing to the bus stop.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
October 2009
I spoke to xxxxxx today and she told me that Kate went crazy last week after reading the US Weekly story. She knows that somebody that works for her is talking and she’s threatening to fire everyone and hire new people to watch the kids. She said if she finds out that one of the babysitters is talking to anybody about her family, she’s going to “fire their asses and sue them.” After that, she’s been completely quiet around the babysitters. She was on the phone yelling at Jaime Ayers about the photo of her yelling at the kids. She said “how could you be so stupid to do that in front of the paparazzi??!!”
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
October 2009
Kate is off again doing TV interviews to gain the public’s sympathy. I wish just one time an actual tear would come out of her eye as she’s pretending to cry and wipe away imaginary tears. It would be so much more convincing. Kate’s busy doing interviews and book signings and speaking engagements and taping a pilot for a new TV show, all while her eight children are home with paid staffers. She says it’s all for the children but the children are the ones suffering. They’re growing up without parents and the lesson they’re learning here is that money is more important than love. Kate is so consumed with fortune and fame that she’s lost sight of what should be most important. The future and well-being of her children.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
December 2009
The nanny took all eight kids to the bus stop this morning while Kate stayed inside. She left the house at 8:30 and lost the paps on the country roads and disappeared for the rest of the day. The nanny came to the house at 3:30 to get the van to go and pick the kids up. The bus pulled in and the kids jumped out and she gave them big hugs and gathered them up and made their way back toward home. On my way back home, I drove past one of Kate’s hot spots just to check and sure enough, there was her car sitting right out front. She was at the tanning salon, two minutes from the bus stop! I guess keeping that healthy glow is more important than picking your kids up fro
m school.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
December 2009
…Jon approached Kate to try to discuss his TLC situation. He was hoping to convince her to talk TLC into dropping the injunction against him and releasing him from his contract so he could take jobs and make some money to pay his bills and child support. Jon said to Kate, “there’s no way I can pay that much child support if I’m not on TV,” and Kate responded, “I guess you’re going to jail then.”
Jon and Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
December 2009
The bus pulled in and Judy the nanny got out and went to the door to welcome the kids home. I could hear them yelling “Judyyyyyy!” They love her. She gave them hugs and gathered them up and they made their way to the van. It took close to fifteen minutes to get them all settled and strapped in. Judy took them straight back to the house and they went inside. The kids were laughing and having a good time on the way in. On the way back home, I passed Kate in her Land Cruiser but by the time I got myself turned around, she was out of sight. At the spot that I passed her, the only place she could have been is the tanning salon. She’s a creature of habit and the tanning place is the only place that she goes near where I saw her.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
January 2010
Even though Kate was at the house ten minutes away, she arrived at the bus stop ten minutes late to get the kids. The bus driver had to sit and wait for her to get there while the kids just sat on the bus and wondered where their mommy was. They were sitting there looking out the window. When Kate finally arrived, she jumped out of the van and went to the bus and was confronted by paparazzi. She was clearly angry as they ere firing questions at her in front of the kids.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
February 2010
Kate is away from the kids again, leaving them with a college-age babysitter. She’s been gone since early on Saturday morning and Jon is still in Hawaii. The sextuplets seem fine as always but Mady and Cara really seem to notice the absence of a parent. They seem depressed and mopey, rarely smiling, like when they’re with Jon or Kate. Five days is a long time for a 9-year-old to be away from both parents.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
February 2010
The Gosselin kids are growing up without the presence of either parent for the majority of the time. The TV show makes it appear that Kate is a great mother, always cooking or organizing or taking the kids places, but having had a glimpse behind the scenes for several months of filming the show, it’s just not the case. When the cameras were rolling, Kate smiled and laughed and cooked and cleaned and traveled with the children. What you didn’t see, if you could have panned back a little bit behind the TLC crew, was the nanny(s) standing by to take the kids the moment the cameras stopped rolling. When the cameras stopped, so did Kate’s pleasant demeanor. The smile went away instantly and she either yelled at the kids for messing up the shot, or yelled at someone on the crew for something else. Nothing is ever good enough for Kate. She has a vision in her head of how she wants things to go, and if anyone deviates from her plan, even a little bit, it sends her into a rage. Kate acted like a monster sometimes when the cameras were rolling. Just imagine how she acted when she didn’t think the audience was watching. “She’s a total control freak and if anybody messes with that, she explodes,” said a former Gosselin nanny.
Kate puts her career ahead of her children’s needs. She has herself so convinced that she needs to have a career on TV “to take care of the kids,” that she overlooks the fact that what the kids really need is a mother that loves them and shows them she loves them and doesn’t put work ahead of them. The Gosselin kids are treated like pets when a family is on vacation. They’re left in the care of someone else while their mother goes off for days and sometimes weeks at a time.
Mady and Cara are having a hard time dealing with their parent’s split and the surrounding media attention. They’ve always taken on Kate’s dramatic personality and thrown tantrums and had emotional issues, but lately they’ve been acting out even more. They ask often “when is mommy coming home?” and seem sad and depressed that she’s not around. They feel lost when Kate’s gone and sometimes they take it out on the little kids. They become very bossy and mean and try to take on Kate’s roll as the mother.
The sextuplets are happy but have no parental direction most of the time with Kate away. The nanny’s job is just to make sure they’re safe and well taken care of but she’s no substitute for a mother when it comes to having talks with the kids or teaching them right and wrong. “That’s Kate’s job. I’m not their mother.”
The sextuplets seem to be very happy and well-adjusted kids but they’re too young to understand much of what’s going with their family. As far as they know, this is how every child grows up. They do well in school and are smart and play together, but they don’t have that bond really with Kate. They talk back and generally just do what they want until it gets too bad and Kate snaps and starts screaming. Then the kids end up running to their rooms crying.
The Gosselin kids are very spoiled, with TLC providing them with gifts and experiences that most kids will never have. First of all, they live in a palatial 8,000 square-foot house with a pool and 24 acres of yard to run around in. They’ve pretty much been given every toy you could possibly imagine and when TLC filming was going strong, there would be a constant flow of new toys and gadgets and equipment coming into the house on a daily basis. When they wanted to film the family camping, bang a Coleman truck shows up with tents and grills and chairs and everything else in their product line. When they wanted to film Jon playing water games in the yard with the kids, bang, the crew shows up with and hands out balloons and guns and water rockets. The kids get to go places that normal kids can’t go, wherever they go because of their celebrity. Floor seats to the Harlem Globetrotters, meet and greet backstage with the team, team shirts with their name on the back and many other gifts from the Globetrotters. You want to go to a Phillies game? The Gosselin kids got to sit in the owner’s box and meat the general manager and had a personal meeting with the Philly Phanatic and a trip through the souvenir stand to grab anything they wanted – all courtesy of TLC. They have no concept of working for things and paying for things as everything has always been given to them for free.
The Gosselin kids are growing up thinking their parent’s lives are normal so they’ll strive to act the same way. Kids take after their parents and want to be like them. What they learn from Kate is how to be demanding and stubborn and again, how to put your own needs ahead of your kids’. She says she’s doing what’s best for her kids, but the reality is that she’s doing the opposite.
Jon & Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
February 2010
Kate has been away from home since Saturday and just returned to the house a few minutes before 3 pm today. She unloaded her suitcases and travel bags from the Land Cruiser and went in the house for a few minutes before coming out and getting the Sprinter van to go and pick up the kids at the bus stop. She wasn’t wearing a hat when she came home but made sure to put one on before going out to face the paparazzi at the bus.
Kate drove the van straight to the bus stop and waited. The parking lot where the bus drops the kids off is still under four inches of snow with only a small area for waiting parents to park, but that didn’t stop Kate from parking the huge van sideways across six parking spaces. She’s got style and her own way of doing things.
Kate jumped out of the van and went to the bus door before it opened and one by one talked to the kids on the last step before directing them to the van. When a few of the kids were at the van they noticed a pap taking their picture and Colin yelled to Kate, “he’s taking our picture!!” Kate yelled back “don’t look at him and get in the van!!” After the last of the tups was off the bus and at the van, Kate talked to the driver for a few minutes and then went back to load the kids into their seats. She took their backpacks one by one
as they got off the bus and was left holding three colorful packs in each hand. She loaded them into the very back of the van and then jumped inside the side door and closed it behind her so she couldn’t be photographed. I was twenty feet away from them as everything went down and I didn’t see or hear anything emotional come from Kate or any of the kids. It didn’t look like a mother who hasn’t seen her kids in a week. Mady and Cara weren’t on the bus which means they had an after-school activity and would be coming on the late bus at 6 pm.
After bus pickup, Kate ran a few errands with the kids before heading home. The first stop was a coffee run at the Starbucks drive-thru. Nothing for the little kids this time around though. Kate just got a single cup for herself. With Coffee in hand, she drove the kids to the UPS store to pick up her mail. She parked the van illegally as always, facing the wrong direction at the curb, right under the ‘No parking fire lane’ sign. Kate left the kids in the car as she went inside for her packages and letters. She was in there for twelve minutes while the kids waited alone in the van with only the paparazzi watching them. Kate made two trips out to the van, carrying several packages the first time and then her letters. She was smiling and talking to the kids through the back of the van as she loaded up. They were yelling and laughing inside, keeping themselves occupied.
After UPS she drove into West Reading to her dry cleaner and again went through the drive-thru and picked up her freshly laundered clothing. After this, she got back on State Hill Road and headed home. Once parked by the front door, they were out of sight as they entered the house but it was very quiet. Once inside, they stayed there until dark. There was only a single set of tracks in the snow where the kids usually play. The nanny was instructed by Kate to keep them out of sight of the paps so they were only allowed to play behind the house.